


The Space Between

by flawedamythyst



Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, But first a lot of angst, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, M/M, Made-Up Soulmate Medical Condition, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22532323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: Clint and Bucky have spent the last few months pretending that finding your soulmate doesn't change anything, even if they do have to make sure they touch often enough to avoid soulbond deprivation. It's just a medical condition, right? It doesn't have to mean anything unless they want it to.And then Clint gets kidnapped.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 77
Kudos: 574
Collections: MHEA Harlequin Hoopla Prompt Challenge 2020, Winterhawk Bingo





	The Space Between

**Author's Note:**

> Huge love to CB and Nny, as always, for talking the ending through with me and helping with the title, and to nny for betaing. I love you both.
> 
> Written for my Winterhawk Bingo square of 'Coma', and the Harlequin Hoopla day 2 Super Romance prompt of 'Soulmates'.

It was dark, and Bucky was all alone in the emptiness.

He hunched up, arms wrapped around his knees, and tried not to feel how achingly alone he was. He couldn’t see anything in the black, but his attempts to feel his way around hadn’t got him very far. There was nothing anywhere around him, nothing but the rough stone wall at his back and the echoing silence.

He couldn’t even remember clearly how he’d got here. The last thing he remembered was pain, so much pain, and then he’d been in the dark.

He’d tried calling out for help but the silence had just swallowed his voice, then sent it repeating back at him like a mockery. Now he was just cowering here where he could at least feel the wall, the only solid thing in this place, and trying not to worry that he’d be trapped here forever.

He took a deep breath, and then another, trying to keep the panic at bay. He couldn’t stay here, he had to get back to the team. He couldn’t leave Steve again, not after seeing how badly the punk had reacted last time. 

And he couldn’t leave Clint. He needed to get back to him most of all.

****

He and Clint had spent the last few months trying so hard to pretend that being soulmates didn't need to change anything, regardless of what the others said. Tony had warned them that you had to restructure your whole life around your partner, Steve had tried to sit them down to work out new protocols for Avenger missions and even Natasha had smacked Clint around the head and told him to stop hiding his head in the sand.

She'd done it hard enough that Bucky had felt the sting of it, two rooms away.

They'd just ignored it all. Bucky had only just got settled into knowing who he was and what he wanted from his life and he wasn't interested in curtailing that all over again and letting someone else make choices for him. He didn't know why Clint had just rolled his eyes at Natasha and snuck out of the meeting with Cap, but he'd been just as dismissive of it all as Bucky was.

"So we need to touch each other every so often? No big deal, we live and work together. It'll be easy."

“Exactly,” Bucky had agreed with satisfaction, and held his fist out for Clint to bump his knuckles against. Clint had grinned as he’d done it, and then they’d gone down to the range and kicked ass for a couple of hours.

Which wasn’t to say that they had ignored the whole thing completely. Before Clint went off on a mission - only short ones now that SHIELD had the red stamp of ‘Active Soulbond’ on his file - he came to Bucky’s room for a couple of hours. They’d take off their shirts to get more of the skin-to-skin touch that was so important, then curl up together to watch an episode or two of _Dog Cops_. They both concentrated on the stupid plotlines, kept their thoughts calm and easy, and half the time Bucky ended up using some of Bruce’s meditation techniques to stop himself from intruding too far into Clint’s mind. It left him feeling nice and loose, relaxed like he’d been in a sauna, and then Clint would pull away, ruffling a hand through his hair and heading off for whatever SHIELD needed him for.

So far, storing up a good chunk of touch like that had been enough that when Clint came back, never more than three days later, they weren’t feeling any symptoms of soulbond deprivation other than the occasional twinge in their muscles.

Well, that and a widening of the empty pit in Bucky’s stomach, but he wasn’t talking about that, wasn’t mentioning it to any of the well-meaning soulbond doctors who poked and prodded him and Clint to make sure they were getting enough time together. He had a horrible feeling he knew the only thing that was going to fill it fully, and he wasn’t interested in pushing too much with this thing, not when the first rush of emotion he’d felt from Clint down the bond had been a surge of horror.

****

Trying to track time passing was impossible, but Bucky could feel himself getting weaker, feel the way he was slumping down over his knees. The funny thing was, he didn’t feel hungry or thirsty or even sleepy, just bone-deep exhausted, as if he were fighting a battle he didn’t know how to win.

Fuck, he wanted Clint beside him. Or anyone, really, but he knew that if Clint touched him right now he’d get a shot of pure energy from it, relief waking him up like it did when Clint came back from a mission and clapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in tight to get the contact they both craved.

No. Not craved, that was wrong. It was a medical necessity for them to touch now, but that didn’t mean Bucky was giving in to it. He’d carefully made sure that their minds didn’t sync together, and he was keeping it that way. This dependency was purely physical, and that was how it was staying.

****

They’d been something like friends before the soulbond had activated, enough that Bucky hadn’t been bothered when he’d heard Clint was rejoining the Avengers and coming to live at the Tower. He’d mentally prepared himself for cold pizza in the fridge and arrows joining the general clutter of weapons on the communal coffee table and then gone back to his coffee. He might not have been on the team at the same time as Clint before, but they’d fought together fairly often, when something had come up that was big enough to pull the West Coast Avengers across the country. He hadn’t foreseen any problems bigger than he’d had with any of the others who were part of the changing rosta of active Avengers.

Of course, he also hadn’t really noticed that he and Clint had never actually touched before, not skin-to-skin. He didn’t notice that until Clint walked into the kitchen on his first morning after moving in, slapped a hand to Bucky’s shoulder in greeting and grazed the tips of his fingers over the bare skin of his neck.

It had happened so fast. Bucky hadn’t been prepared for that at all, how he went from being a whole, entire person all his own, to being so inextricably linked to someone that his skin craved theirs and his body started to shut down if he went too long without touching him. Clint’s emotions blasted into the back of his mind, taking over space that should have been just for Bucky because he was finally, after seventy years of being fucked over, alone in his own head.

 _Oh fuck no,_ he’d heard blasted through his skull and he’d reacted by jerking away, crashing down to the floor as he clutched at his head, terror running through him because his mind wasn’t completely his own any more, he was going to have someone else’s voice in there.

The thought had been echoed back at him, and then they’d been on opposite sides of the kitchen, staring at each other while Steve and the others tried to work out what the fuck was going on.

After that, Bucky had taken care to keep his thoughts his own. He’d used meditation and all the willpower he’d built up under Hydra’s torture to keep a barrier in place, even when they were all curled around each other, storing up touch in preparation for one of Clint’s missions. He didn’t want someone else in his mind and Clint had made it clear he felt the same, so Bucky didn’t see why they had to give in to it.

****

The wall against Bucky’s back was oddly warm. Even if it hadn’t been the only thing other than himself that he could find in the dark, he would have stayed pressed against it. It almost felt comforting, like it was familiar somehow.

That was stupid, it was just a wall.

Still, as time ticked by and he felt more and more worn away, he couldn’t help turning to sit sideways to it, pressing his cheek against the rough stone as if it were a pillow.

****

“Less than two days,” Clint said as he stripped his t-shirt off. Bucky took advantage of his distraction to enjoy the view. Just because he and Clint weren’t soulmates like that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate that at least he was going to have something pretty to look at for the rest of their lives. “Easy-peasy, I’ll be back before you know it.”

“You say that like I’m gonna miss you,” said Bucky, dumping his own shirt on the floor and then holding his arms out for Clint to crawl into. “I’m looking forward to there actually being some coffee in the pot when I go in the kitchen.”

Clint settled down, half on top of him, and Bucky couldn’t keep in a quiet sigh as their skin pressed together and the soulbond lit up with a gentle glow, like a charging battery. God, that always felt so fucking good.

Clint nestled in, pressing his face to Bucky’s shoulder as his muscles relaxed and he went boneless against him. “Good luck with that,” he muttered. “You know Tony’s still gonna be here, right?”

Bucky sighed. “We need another couple of coffee machines.”

Clint just hummed his agreement and Bucky ran a hand over his back. He could feel Clint’s mind resting against his, calm and peaceful with the thrum of skin-to-skin touch, and he carefully raised his mental walls a little higher to keep out any of his thoughts. He wasn’t going to violate him like that, not even if fate or DNA, or what the hell else decided this soulmate shit, wanted him to. A guy’s mind should be his own.

****

It took him a few minutes - or maybe a few hours, time was hard to measure - before Bucky realised that with his ear pressed up against the wall, he could hear something behind it. Something that seemed more like a vibration than a sound, a steady, low pulse that he found himself timing his breathing to, almost instinctively. 

He pressed in even closer, ignoring the stone biting into his ear, and set his palms on the stone as well.

It sounded like a heartbeat.

****

Bucky knew before Clint’s mission handlers did, and definitely before the other Avengers did. Of course he knew. For all that Clint usually got banged up on his missions, enough that Bucky felt the echo of his pain, he’d never been hurt so badly before, enough to make Bucky grunt and drop the book he’d been reading as it washed over him.

That wasn’t what really tipped him off, though. However hard he tried to keep their minds apart, some of Clint’s emotions occasionally still seeped through, especially when they were as strong as the terror and pain that pulsated through Bucky for a heart-stopping few seconds, and then abruptly cut off.

Bucky was racing down to the mission room before he even thought about it, ignoring the elevator in favour of the stairs.

By the time he got there, it was too late. Clint’s trackers were gone, the agents who’d been with him were dead, and all Tony could find when he got into his suit and blazed over to Clint’s last known location was a patch of blood and Clint’s bow, broken in two.

“Bucky, you have to stay calm,” said Steve, putting both his hands on Bucky’s shoulders, but that was easy for him to say when his soulmate was standing right there beside him.

“They’re going to fucking torture him, Stevie,” Bucky spat out. “We both know that. They’re gonna torture him, and I’m gonna feel it, and then either they’ll kill him and I’ll go too, or they’ll keep him long enough that we fade away from not renewing the bond anyway. Don’t fucking tell me to calm down.” He had his hands clenched in his hair, pulling at it hard enough for him to concentrate on the stab of pain rather than the echoing silence coming from where the warm sense of Clint should be, tucked back behind the barrier Bucky had created.

“We’re not going to let that happen,” said Natasha, very firmly, and Bucky might have believed her if he couldn’t already feel the shakiness of soulbond deprivation setting into his limbs.

“We don’t even know where he is,” he snapped and turned away, fighting the temptation to start punching the walls. “Fuck! We shoulda been with him, _I_ shoulda been with him, I should be out there now, tracking the asshole down, why the fuck-”

“Bucky!” said Steve, cutting through his building panic. “Calm down. We’ll find him, I promise, but you need to keep relaxed, you need to stay tuned into him so you can reach out as soon as he’s awake.”

Except Bucky had never learnt how to tune in to Clint like that. All he’d done since the soulbond formed was to shut it off, close it down, work out all the ways he could avoid hearing anything from Clint. Now that he wanted to make contact, he didn’t have the first idea how to.

****

“Hello?” he called, but his throat was dry and his words just disappeared into the void as if they’d never existed. He cleared his throat and tried again, focusing on the heartbeat and hoping it meant there was someone other than him here.

“Hello? Is there someone there?”

He hadn’t felt this alone even when Hydra had kept him frozen and locked up for years at a time, talking over him as if he were an object. This felt so much worse, as if there was something missing that he couldn’t live without.

He’d say it was like he’d had an arm cut off, but he’d been there and done that, and even that hadn’t felt like this.

“Anyone?” he called again, louder, and then concentrated hard on the sounds coming through the wall. “Please,” he whispered.

The heartbeat seemed to swell, then something cut through it, a grating noise like someone had dragged something against the other side of the wall. His heart leapt in his chest.

“Oh god, please be there.”

He pressed at the wall with both hands as if he could just pass through it and to his surprise it almost seemed to give a little, like it wasn’t quite as solid as he’d thought.

“Hi, hello! Bucky? Please say you can hear me,” he heard coming through the wall and felt his own body light up with joy.

“Clint?” he called back. “Oh fuck, Clint! We’ve been looking for you.”

Clint snorted. “You found me. Where else did you think I was going to be?”

Bucky didn’t know what that meant but it didn’t matter, not when there was someone there with him, not when it was Clint, the one person he wanted to have with him the most.

“Fuck, I wish I could touch you,” he said, pressing harder at the wall.

****

They didn’t find Clint. A day passed, and then another one, and none of Tony’s gadgets, none of Natasha’s contacts, no one Steve could find to punch, none of them turned up anything to help them find Clint.

Bucky hadn’t realised just how much it could hurt to miss someone. It started with his skin, feeling stretched and numb, then sank into his chest like a stone to the place where Clint’s touch should be. Not just his touch; his voice, his laugh, the way he smirked when he beat Bucky at the range, the soft happiness in his eyes when Bucky handed him coffee, all of it. It had made a place inside Bucky to live, and without it there, shoring him up, he began to crumble inward.

He sat on the sofa, wrapped in Clint’s hoodie, and just breathed while the others busied themselves around him. He’d tried reaching for Clint with his mind but he still wasn’t getting anything. He had no idea if that meant Clint was drugged or hurt, or if keeping that path blocked for so long had cut it off completely.

At least he knew Clint wasn’t dead, because if he was, Bucky would be as well. They’d been linked too long for him to survive Clint dying now.

On the fourth day, the muscle cramps started. He curled over, choking out groans as they shot through him, and Steve finally succeeded in bullying him down to the medical unit. There was nothing the doctors could do though, nothing except fuss over him and link him up to machines and make grave faces about what would happen if he didn’t get skin-to-skin contact with his soulmate soon.

Bucky just shut his eyes and blocked it all out.

****

The wall pressed in under Bucky’s hands, like it had as much in common with foam as it did with stone. “Clint,” he called out, pressing harder and feeling it give even further, then he sank his metal fingers into it, grunting with the exertion.

It worked, though. He could feel the wall slowly coming apart, tearing under his grip until he was able to get his other hand in and wrench a hole in it.

“Bucky?” Clint called back. “What are you-?”

“I can get through,” said Bucky, ripping out a whole handful of the rock and tossing it behind him. The hole was only the size of a fist and he had no idea how wide the wall was, but it was enough to make his heart leap in his chest. “Clint, I’m gonna get through to you, just hang on.”

“Shit, I can feel it,” said Clint, and there was a shudder through the wall, as if it had been struck by a cannonball. “I can help, let me just…”

His voice trailed off and Bucky felt the wall shake again, even as he drove his fist in further, shattering the stone and ripping it out of his way. It hurt his skin to drive his non-metal hand in but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. He had to get through to Clint and he was going to do whatever it took, even if it hurt, even if knocking down the wall felt like the hardest thing he’d ever done.

It was as if it was taking his mind as much as his body, all his willpower gathered up and thrown at the task, gritting his teeth as his mind screamed under the exertion as the stone crumbled under his fists. Clint was on the other side. He had to get to him.

****

The first time Bucky blacked out, it was only for a few seconds, but half an hour later he went under for a couple of minutes. When he came back, the pain was even worse, like one of his organs had been torn from his body, like he should be able to look down and see his flesh torn apart.

The doctors were all gathered around him, clucking and fussing.

“I’m so sorry, Sergeant Barnes,” said the lead one. “Unless your soulmate is located, you’ll continue losing consciousness for longer and longer periods, until…”

Until he didn’t wake up at all. Bucky clenched his eyes shut, pressing a hand to his chest where he could feel the gaping ache the most. “Is there any word from the others?”

The doctor shook his head. “They’re all still looking,” he said, then hesitated and added, with the tone of someone who was all too used to delivering bad news, “If they don’t find him within the next twelve hours, I’m afraid it is likely to be too late.”

Bucky just nodded, grimacing as a fresh wave of pain flowed over him. 

“The best thing you can do is go to your shared space with your soulmate, inside your minds,” added the doctor. “Mental contact isn’t close to physical, but it will ameliorate some of your symptoms and give you a bit longer.”

Bucky just shut his eyes with exhaustion, because he and Clint didn’t have a shared space. They’d never taken the time to find it, never even let themselves get close to each other, mentally, and now that was coming back to bite them both in the ass.

It figured that even something most people counted as a good thing, like having a soulmate, would just end up meaning more pain for him.

****

The wall was thicker than Bucky had been expecting. He dug through a foot of rock, tossing it behind him and ignoring the scrapes and cuts on his hand and arm. He could hear Clint working from the other side but he wasn’t going to kid himself that a guy without a metal arm, or super-soldier strength, was going to get through it any easier than he was.

When he finally broke through into empty space, it was with a crash of loose stones falling away.

“Bucky!” he heard Clint’s voice and then, a moment later, there was a hand gripping his.

“Oh fuck,” said Bucky, clinging on and then shoving his other hand through the gap to wrap around Clint’s. “Oh fuck, Clint. You’re here.”

“Yep,” said Clint, “And so are you. Bucky-” He made a noise like a choked up sob. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for coming to get me.”

“I didn’t-” started Bucky, emotions rolling through him, and he took a deep breath. “I don’t even know how I got here.” He leaned forward to rest his head against the rock still separating them. “I don’t know where we are.”

Clint’s grip tightened on his. “Don’t you?” he asked, then pulled away. “Fuck it, fuck this, fuck trying to do the right thing,” he muttered, and then there was a _slam_ of force, and the rest of the wall just collapsed around them. Bucky stepped back to avoid the rocks falling around him, blinking in surprise when he realised that the darkness had lightened enough for him to see the dark figure of Clint in front of him.

“Clint,” he said, and nearly tripped over the rubble as he flung himself into Clint’s arms, pulling him in as tightly as he could and tucking his head against Clint’s neck, where he could feel the warmth of his skin. It didn’t seem to give him the same sense of being recharged that he usually got but he didn’t care right now, not when he finally had Clint in his arms. “Fuck, Clint, I missed you.”

Clint was holding him back just as tightly, strong enough that Bucky might have worried about the breath being crushed out of his lungs if he hadn’t had the serum shoring him up. “Yeah, me too,” said Clint. “Bucky, Jesus, Bucky, I can’t believe you’re here. I thought I’d be alone here forever.”

“Never,” vowed Bucky. “If there’s any way for me to get to you, you’ll never be alone.”

Clint let out a shaky breath and pressed a kiss to the top of Bucky’s head. “Am I allowed to tell you I love you?” he asked.

Bucky felt himself tense up, because talking about feelings had been on the taboo list as much as sharing them through their link had been. Bucky had been trying so hard to pretend that they were just good pals, ones who could still have lives outside each other. He’d wanted Clint to be able to find something better than being tied to a fucked up, ex-brainwashed assassin.

“Aw,” said Clint softly, “aw, Bucky, no.” He clung to Bucky tighter, then they were gently sinking down to the ground, where Clint could hold Bucky in his lap, one hand stroking over his back. “There’s no one better than you, not for me. You’ve gotta know that.”

Bucky took another breath, pressing his face in closer to Clint’s neck. Maybe he did know that, now at least. It was hard to deny it when Clint was holding on to him as if terrified of letting him go, when both of them had hands cut up from pulling a wall down to get to each other. When he could feel Clint’s emotions seeping through into his mind, strong and warm and nothing like the forceful rush taking over his thoughts that he’d feared. 

Clint was feeling so much affection, all mingled up with sorrow and relief and desperation, and it all pretty much matched up with what Bucky was feeling back. He took a moment, then let his emotions out as well, wrapping around Clint’s in his mind the way Clint was wrapped around him out here.

****

Steve’s face was grim when he came down from the mission centre.

“You still don’t know where he is,” said Bucky. They’d done their best to dose him with painkillers but his system was rejecting most of them and they’d had to strap down his arms because he came out of the black outs fighting now, more often than not.

If he came out of them at all. The last one had lasted well over an hour and Bucky hadn’t needed the doctor to tell him that the next one might just go on forever.

“We think we know who has him,” said Steve. “Natasha thinks she knows someone who’ll be able to tell us where, but she’s having problems tracking him down.”

Bucky just nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Listen, Stevie, if you don’t make it in time, don’t go beating yourself up about it, okay? I know you’re doing everything you can.”

He knew as he said it that there was no way Steve wouldn’t blame himself. He’d pretty obviously drowned himself with guilt the last time Bucky had gone down, before he’d had a pretty good go at actually drowning himself, and there had been as little reason for it then as now.

Steve grimaced. “We’re heading out,” he said. “We’re going to go bash some heads in until we get something. You just hold on, okay? We ain’t near the end of the line yet.”

It kinda felt like they were, but Bucky managed a smile for Steve before he left. Once he was alone, he collapsed back into the bed and clenching his teeth against the pain flooding through him. Fuck, he hoped Clint was drugged and not having to feel this.

****

“Bucky,” said Clint, running a hand over Bucky’s back and up to his neck. “Hey, you okay?”

Bucky nodded his head against Clint’s shoulder, feeling their emotions swirling around together and feeding off each other, affection and love burning brighter between them with every breath. 

“Yeah,” he said, lifting his head so he could see Clint’s face, still draped in shadows but now lit enough for Bucky to see the gleam of his eyes and the serious look on his face. He couldn’t bring himself to look away to see what the place they were in looked like, trusting Clint to let him know if there was an immediate danger. “I love you,” he added, because he’d been sitting on that for far too long, and he couldn’t remember why right now.

Clint’s whole face was transformed with happiness. “I love you too,” he said, and then leaned in, slowly enough that Bucky could have pulled away at any time, to kiss him.

Bucky wasn’t interested in pulling away. He pressed into the kiss, deepening it as he sank his fingers into Clint’s hair, holding his face as close as he could. He felt Clint’s emotions spark higher as want and satisfaction coiled around each other. Bucky wasn’t sure if the surge of relief at having finally got something he’d wanted for so long came from Clint or himself, and figured it didn’t matter much. Not when he had Clint’s mouth under his, their tongues moving together and their hands grasping for each other.

When he pulled away, the light had brightened enough for every line of Clint’s smile to be visible, and he finally took the time to glance around. The space they were in was blank and empty, and the rubble from the wall seemed to have disappeared.

“Where are we?” he asked.

Clint laughed. “Don’t you know?” he asked. “This is our shared space. The place where our minds meet.” He hesitated. “The place you’ve been hiding from since we touched.”

There was a note of wariness in his voice, as if he were waiting for Bucky to react badly. Bucky just held on to him tighter and looked around at the nothing surrounding them. “It’s kinda dull.”

Clint laughed. “We can change that,” he said. “We can fill it up with whatever we want.” A shadow crossed his face and he shrugged a shoulder. “If we have time.”

Bucky blinked. “We’re not actually together,” he realised. “This is just in our minds. You’re still kidnapped.”

Clint nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shoulda been more careful, Bucky, I’m so sorry. I didn’t stop to think that I was risking us both.”

“Not your fault,” said Bucky. “We’ve both been acting like this didn’t change anything, when it changed everything.” He clung on to Clint tighter. “Fuck, though, if we’re in our heads, if this is a soulbond deprivation coma, then…” Then they didn’t have long left, and even if the others did find Clint and get him back to Bucky so they could get the skin-to-skin contact they desperately needed, there was a chance that it was already too late and they’d end up fading away anyway.

“I know,” said Clint, gruffly. “Fuck, Bucky, I know.”

Bucky took a deep breath. “At least we’re together here,” he said, and clung on to Clint tighter. “C’mon, let’s do something about this place. I kinda feel like it needs somewhere comfier to sit than the floor.”

“Maybe even a bed?” asked Clint, waggling his eyebrows, and Bucky snorted.

****

Fuck, he’d had no idea that it would be like this. Whenever he’d thought about sharing minds with a soulmate, all he’d been able to think about was how it had felt to have Hydra’s commands written over his thoughts.

“Yeah,” said Clint softly as Bucky considered it, holding on to him on the sofa they’d worked out how to create together. As much as they’d joked about the bed, they were both feeling the deep exhaustion of soulbond deprivation sinking in and weighing them down and just wanted to rest for now. “I get it. When we first connected and I felt your mind for the first time, all I could think about was Loki.”

There was an echo of a soft, commanding voice and the brief image of a smirk, then Clint shuddered and pushed the memories aside. Bucky could feel him doing that now, while he was all wrapped up in Clint’s mind.

“By the time I talked to Tony and Steve and worked out that it wasn’t like that, it was too late,” Clint added. “You were already building the wall, and I didn’t- I wasn’t going to push anything on you that you didn’t want. I won’t ever do that, Bucky, I promise, if we get out of this and you want to go back to before, then I’ll help you rebuild that wall.”

“No,” said Bucky immediately, because now the wall was gone, he couldn’t begin to imagine wanting it back. “No, you were right. This is different. This is a good thing, Clint, and I want to keep hold of it.”

If they could, he thought, and felt Clint clutch tighter at him as he heard the thought.

“The team will get us back together,” said Clint. “No way Steve’s gonna let you die if he can help it, and I owe Natasha money, you know she won’t let that go.”

Bucky snorted. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Just a matter of time.”

Except they didn’t have much time left at all, and it was becoming increasingly likely that the team were going to be too late. He was too tired to do more than cling to Clint and he could tell Clint felt the same. There was no pain, not in this place, but they were still fading away.

****

They were sprawled out along the full length of the sofa, Clint sprawled half over Bucky, when he became aware of something outside the bubble they’d created, just the two of them and the soft flow of their emotions.

“Is something beeping?” he asked in a mumble.

Clint shifted his head, pressing a kiss to Bucky’s skin as he moved. Bucky wasn’t sure when they’d become naked, but he wasn’t complaining about feeling Clint’s skin pressed so close to his, even if it wasn’t reviving their soulbond.

“Yeah,” said Clint. “Sounds like a computer game. Or-” His head came up and he looked at Bucky with wide eyes, “or hospital machines.”

Bucky felt his own eyes widen and he pushed himself up on his elbows. “Do you think-?” he asked, then realised that he was feeling better than he had been, as if the exhaustion was being siphoned off. He grabbed Clint’s arm. “They found you.”

“Seems like,” said Clint, his grin spreading across his face until Bucky had to lean up and kiss him.

“Shall we try waking up?” asked Bucky.

Clint shrugged. “I don’t know, I’m kinda enjoying this,” he said, running two fingers down Bucky’s cheek and along his jaw. 

The beeping was getting louder though and Bucky could hear voices as well.

“That’s Steve,” he pointed out. “You know he won’t leave us alone until we do wake up.”

Clint sighed. “Yeah, yeah, Captain Stubborn Ass,” he said. “Okay, fine, but we’re coming back here later.” His face took on an uncertain look. “If you want, obvi-”

Bcky cut him off with a kiss. “I would love to spend time in your mind when we’re not dying,” he said, and Clint’s smile was soft and pleased. Bucky wondered how he could have missed how much Clint had been wanting them to share their soulbond properly.

“God,” said Clint, and kissed him again, then looked up with a sigh. “Here we go then. See you in the real world.”

Bucky nodded and shut his eyes, focusing in on the sound of the beeping, and then opened them again, this time feeling the extra drag as his body followed the command.

He’d been moved to a different hospital room, one with more equipment and a larger bed. A bed that Clint was also in, both of them naked and pressed together exactly as they had been on the sofa in their shared space, albeit with a blanket over the top to preserve their modesty. Bucky reached up with a shaking hand to run his fingers through Clint’s hair.

“Bucky!” said Steve, stepping forward. “You’re awake.”

“No shit, punk,” said Bucky, in a rough voice. He tore his eyes away from Clint to see that Natasha was also in the room and they were both still in their combat suits, looking battered and bruised.

Clint let out a groan and pressed his face closer against Bucky’s shoulder. “Aw man, my _head_.”

“They had you drugged,” said Natasha. “It will take a while for the effects to flush out of your system.”

Clint groaned again, then rolled his head to the side to look at her. “Hey, Tasha,” he said. “Guess I owe you one.”

She snorted. “You owe me seventeen,” she corrected, “and fifty bucks.”

Clint sighed and looked up at Bucky. “Told you there was no way she was letting me go without paying that back.”

Steve had one hand clasped around the rail of the bed. “Bucky, you gotta stop doing this to me,” he said. “I thought I’d lost you again.”

“Nah,” said Bucky. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.” He looked back down at Clint. “Not when I’ve got this asshole to keep from getting kidnapped. Again.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” said Natasha. “I believe our reaction was, ah, _extreme_ enough to prevent anyone else thinking it was a good idea.”

“Good going,” said Clint, holding a fist out for her to bump. The movement meant his arm was no longer touching Bucky and the loss of even that amount of skin-to-skin contact was enough to make Bucky wince. Fuck, he still felt so weak.

“I need to nap though,” said Clint, as if reading Bucky’s mind which, okay, he probably was. He curled his arm back in under the blankets, holding on to Bucky and dropping his head back against his shoulder. “Tell everyone to leave us alone for a couple of hours, yeah?”

“I think we can manage that,” said Steve, sounding amused, but Bucky didn’t bother looking over at the punk, not when he could watch the way Clint’s face relaxed into sleep.

Steve and Natasha left and he let his own eyes shut as well, slipping away into the soulbond, to where he could feel Clint waiting for him in their shared place, where there was nothing between their minds. They needed to make up for lost time, after all.


End file.
